Vice President Kamala Harris
In her Wednesday interview with MSNBC, Vice President Kamala Harris provided a detailed, two-minute-long response to a question about housing policy and her plans regarding home affordability if she is elected president. (Watch it here.) But on Fox News the following day, multiple hosts and pundits seized on what they saw to be the most significant aspect of Harris’ response: her use of the term “holistic.”
During the primetime “Hannity” program, host Sean Hannity ranted beside a graphic of Harris’ face and the term “holistically” repeated three times. Hannity also referenced Harris’ marks with a chyron underneath that read, “Kamala Harris’ ‘Holistic’ Word Salad’.”
The segment was a capper on an entire day of Fox taking aim at the vice president’s vocabulary.
Lawrence Jones, co-host of “Fox & Friends,” began Thursday by telling viewers that Harris had “found a new word—holistic.”
On “America’s Newsroom,” anchor Dana Perino played a clip of Harris and mused, “Imagine she got paid a dollar for every time she said it.”
Commentator Joe Concha followed up on “America Reports,” and said, “She said the word holistically three times. That’s really hard to do.”
In the afternoon, Jesse Watters of “The Five” noted, “She said she is going to give money to state and local governments and it is going to be holistic. What does that mean—she is going to build yoga studios, Jessica? Healing crystals?”
His co-host Greg Gutfeld added that Harris had used “holistic” as a “rhetorical safe word” during her interview.
Laura Ingraham said on her show, “The Ingraham Angle,” that Harris offered “another tired cliché” during her interview and that “holistic” was the candidate’s “favorite new word.”
Watters took another stab at the issue while hosting “Jesse Watters Primetime,” asking, “What’s holistic about housing? A yoga studio?”
Gutfeld also brought up the issue during his program, “Gutfeld!”: “Here I thought [President] Joe [Biden] was the stutterer. She says it like she just learned the word. “
This bizarre attack continued through Friday morning, when, during an appearance on “Fox & Friends First,” Concha asked, “What does holistic mean?”
Fox News used the string of attacks to feed into a narrative the network has attempted to build around the vice president, repeatedly telling their audience that she does not provide clear answers and speaks in a “word salad.”
At the same time that Fox News has promoted this line of attack against Harris, the network has been an ardent defender of Donald Trump, who is infamous for nonsensical public speaking.
Trump has compared immigrants to the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter, falsely claimed that windmills are mass killers of birds, ranted about sharks and electric batteries, and was mocked for his plan to turn Canadian rivers into faucets for Americans.
But as far as Fox News is concerned, at least he didn’t say “holistic.”
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